


in the grass

by Eisoj5



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Fluff, Snakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 21:35:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8506351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisoj5/pseuds/Eisoj5
Summary: Missing scene from Manchester, Part II with the snake in the barn.





	

The snake is a brownish-black, with pale yellow stripes tracing the contours of its length. From his spot behind the president's shoulder, Sam looks at it curiously as it slithers along the wall, away from CJ and towards Doug.

“Pretty cold for a snake to be roaming around during this time of year,” Sam observes. “I'll bet it thought this was a nice warm hidey-hole and didn't count in a bunch of people wandering in to practice a speech.” He walks over and starts to lean down—

“You're not going to _pick it up?_ ” Josh is hunched up, feet tucked under him. His coat fluffs out so that he looks like nothing quite so much as a startled owl, perched on his chair. It's an odd chair to have in a barn, all worn-down carved wood; Sam decides someone must have brought it out so the staff wouldn't end up like Toby, reclining in the back of the truck, or picking hay out of unexpected places like CJ’ll have to do after the meeting.

“Well, yes,” Sam says. “I’ll take it back outside. Wouldn't want a snake to spook the horses.” He pauses. “There _are_ horses that live in this barn?”

President Bartlet eyes Sam over the rim of his glasses. “Yes, Sam, I keep a team of Clydesdales for the Bartlet family holiday postcards.”

“That's not a bad idea,” Bruno says, immediately followed by Toby, equally dry: “We'll get sued for copyright infringement.” Connie snorts and rolls her eyes. Doug rolls his eyes, too, but he looks less amused and more irritated. Sam's beginning to suspect that's the man's default expression.

“Can't you—scoot it along with a newspaper or something?” CJ asks, keeping a wary eye on the snake.

“It’s not a spider, CJ, I'm going to pick it up,” Sam says, crouching and extending a hand slowly towards it. He’s abruptly conscious of everybody watching him, including the snake, which flickers its tongue in and out. “Be cool, snakey.”

“It's going to bite you,” Bruno says, unhelpfully.

“What if it's poisonous?” Josh says. Sam spares him a glance; his eyebrows are climbing skyward in that anxious way of his, usually reserved for the antics of Congress, or when the Mets have made a particularly dubious late substitution.

Toby answers faster than Sam—or the President. “Venomous. It might be venomous.” He flicks a piece of hay at CJ and Josh. “It's poisonous if _you_ eat _it_. Venomous if _it_ eats _you_.”

“A garter snake isn’t venomous,” Sam says.

“Learn much about herpetology while you were writing the _Duke Law Review_ , did you,” President Bartlet says, and the glasses come off, and the Latin comes out. “ _Thamnophis sirtalis_ , the common garter snake, produces a very mild venom, enough to incapacitate small birds and rodents, that sort of thing. A neurotoxin, I think.”

“I've always said you have bird-like qualities,” Josh says, somewhat worriedly. “Attraction to shiny objects, tendency to crash into windows at high speeds—”

“That was _one_ time,” Sam says, throwing caution to the wind and darting his hand out to grab the snake’s body, a few inches behind its head. CJ yelps and flails over sideways into Josh, who braces just in time to catch her before they both go tumbling into the hay.

Sam straightens up, the snake dangling from his hand, its body curling back and forth under his arm until it gets its tail wrapped around his wrist. He grins. “I caught it.”

“You—” CJ shakes a finger at him, shrinking back against Josh. “Keep that thing away from me.”

“Definitely a garter snake,” the president pronounces, approvingly.

Toby looks at him. “You're still here?” He waves a hand at Leo, who raises his hands in a shrug.

“I wanted to see how this all turned out,” President Bartlet says. “Good get, Sam, it’s a very nice snake. Don't bring it in the house, though, Abbey hates snakes.”

“ _I_ hate snakes,” CJ says, shuddering. Josh pats her arm.

President Bartlet nods at Leo. “All right, we’re off. I want another draft in an hour.” The usual chorus of “Yes, Mr. President” trails him out of the barn.

Bruno looks around at the rest of them. “I should lock you in,” he says, again, balefully, and then follows the president and Leo off in the direction of the house.

“How’d you do that?” Josh asks Sam, nudging CJ up with his shoulder. She frowns and reluctantly climbs back onto the hay bale beside him. Sam defers to her feelings about the snake and crosses the room to stand as far away as he can, folding his arms into his chest so the snake isn’t out over the floor, should it decide to make a break for freedom.

It doesn't seem to want to, though, winding its way slowly into the crook of his elbow. “I moved with purpose,” Sam says. “Deliberately, yet without hesitation. Like this snake might itself strike at a—” Toby's eyebrows are going up now, too, so he stops. “Yeah. With purpose.”

“I never would’ve guessed you of all people for a woodland ranger,” Toby says.

Sam flickers a smile at him. “I think you'll still find that I'm full of surprises well into the second term.”

“I, for one, am not at all surprised by your snake-handling abilities,” Josh volunteers.

CJ looks at him and laughs abruptly. She turns to stare at Sam, waiting for a snarky reply, but he just blinks at her, his mind trying to deliver words rapid-fire to his mouth and failing.

“Wait,” Josh blurts. “I-I—”

“Just realized how that sounded, yes, we all see it in your face, Josh,” Toby says. He's staring at Sam now too, but he doesn't look mad, just amused. Connie and Doug are swiveling back and forth between the senior staffers like they're at a four-sided tennis match. Sam starts to send up a silent prayer of thanks that the president and Leo aren’t—

—Josh tries, desperately, “Would you believe me if I said I meant because Sam used to work for evil corporate lawyers, you know, snakes as a metaphor, and not because we had a thing?”

“ _Josh!_ ” Sam focuses very hard on not dropping the garter snake on the ground. Or squeezing it to death.

“A _'thing?_ ’” CJ says. Her voice scales an octave as she manages to stretch the word into multiple syllables, and her face—her face is alight with an unholy mixture of glee and dismay.

“Oh my God,” Sam mutters, personally opting for the latter. And then: “Is this going to be better or worse than accidentally sleeping with a call girl?”

The snake flicks its tongue speculatively.

*****

(President Bartlet, some time later: “Did you know that garter snakes mate in a giant pile? They call it a mating ball, which sounds like a very polite Southern way to describe—well, it’s a veritable orgy. Can you imagine what someone might have accidentally revealed if we’d found _that_ going on in the barn, CJ?”)

  


**Author's Note:**

> The moment when Sam says "What kind?" and goes _towards_ the snake, was when he cemented himself as my favorite character. Yesterday's news of a snake on a plane? I would've been standing under the compartment watching and waiting to catch it.


End file.
